Quicker than Falling Asleep
by valagator
Summary: Harry kept his feelings bottled up after the war. He kept the sleeves down, the coats in the closet, and the bodies tucked away. But one night with Ron and George, talking about the death of their brother, the silence becomes too much to bear.


It had been a rough night... for everyone. Even though the battle was long over, and our physical scars healed, our emotional scars refused to get better. The pain still lingered of loss and heartbreak.

That night, I'd joined the Weasleys downstairs at about two o'clock in the morning. I had woken up with the scars on my chest burning and my throat raw from screaming after a nightmare. I don't recall what it was about; they all got jumbled together after a while. All I remembered were the screams of my friends and allies, and the pale red eyes and slitted nose of Tom Riddle.

I remembered Draco Malfoy's wild eyes, riddled with immense pain, and obvious regret. He didn't want to join them. He just wanted to befree of the _burden_ that had been set on his shoulders when he was a child, and didn't know any other way. Pale blonde hair caked with mud and brick from the rubble; grey eyes heavy after seeing too much; a look that I myself saw any time I looked in a mirror.

I had long since accepted my respect and love for him; there was nothing I could do for the beautiful man except to _fight_ him with everything I had because he was evil and I was good. But the world isn't split into good people and death eaters. We both have light, and dark inside of us. It's up to us which side we choose to act on.

And he chose dark rather than light.

I sat up, my chest heaving with heavy breaths, momentarily confused until I had realized that I was home. I was with the Weasleys. I wasn't on the run. I wasn't in St. Mungo's. I was home.

Then I realized that the silence was too great; to heavy. I carefully put on my old glasses and picked up my freshly repaired wand.

 _"Lumos Maxima"_ I whispered, and a blinding white light brightened the whole room. I looked around; Ron wasn't there. His bed was rumpled and unkempt, but he wasn't in it. I stood up on the familiar creaky floorboards, the silence pressing into me.

 _'Just like when I was walking into_ _the woods.'_ The thought sat in my head like a crushing weight. My heart started palpitating harshly in my chest, and my breathing sped up.

"No. No No No. You're fine, Harry. You're home." I had said quietly to myself, standing at the top of the long staircase just outside of Ron's room. I forced myself to calm down, before walking down the creaking stairs towards the flickering candle light at the bottom.

My feet hit the thick shag carpet after the last step, instantly warming me. The night was cold, unusual for summer, but appropriate for the mood we were all in. I walked into the sitting room to see two bowed red haired heads. Ron and George.

"Hey..." I said quietly, causing them to look up at me. I offered a soft smile to them when I saw their tear stained cheeks.

"Hey Harry..." Ron said, his voice cracking, and more tears dribbling down his face from sad hazel eyes. I took the seat on the side of him; George sitting in a chair next to the couch.

"What keeps you up tonight?" I had asked, but I already knew the answer. It was always the same.

The war.

War never ends.

War never leaves.

War never sleeps.

War is.

War is not.

It's always the same.

What else could it be?

"Fred." George said, his voice tightened in the obvious act of repressing tears. He takes in a rattling breath, and Ron leans over and rubs his back in a brotherly way.

George wiped his eyes, blinking away tears. I sucked in a deep breath of my own. Fred was family to me, too. His death was a dent in my already pulverized heart.

"We were just... talking about him." Ron said, quietly.

And so it began. A long conversation filled with tears, laughs, and memories. Remembering a young man who was smart, resourceful, funny, caring and brave. Fred Weasly, a great.

"I-I wonder..." George started after I had gone long quiet. "-if it hurt." he said, tears streaming again. I tuned back into the conversation, from which I was completely distracted. It had been a while since I'd contributed to the conversation. I couldn't shake the feeling that Fred's death was on MY hands.

I looked down at my hands, and turned them so I could see every angle. They looked innocent enough. Dirty nails, dry-ish skin, leading to scarred wrists and a blood stained red shirt that was not so innocent.

You would never be able to tell that they held a wand which used illegal curses.

You would never be able to tell that they held the wand that killed people, and indirectly killed just as many.

"If what hurt?" Ron asked him.

"Him... dying." George said, and I looked up.

Memories flooded into my head.

 _"The boy who lived, come to die..."_ Vivid images of the forest rushed into my head with the force of a freight train.

 _"And you'll stay with me?"_

 _"Until the very end."_

I started hyperventilating, and everything started closing around me.

"Are you okay, mate?" Ron asked me. I nodded quickly, and tried to get myself under control. I took one last deep breath, before opening my eyes, my forehead covered in sweat and my hands desperately grabbing at the fabric of the couch.

"It's..." I started to say, looking at the two of them. Real family. Brothers by blood. With a mother and a father.

Yet their lives were just as broken as mine.

"It's quicker than... falling asleep." I said quietly. Confusion covered their faces for just a fraction of a moment before understanding took its place.

"God, Harry. You actually did..." Said Ron. I nodded. I'd never spoken to anyone about what had happened in the woods that night. I couldn't truley put it into words."

"I-I had to... to kill Voldemort. I had to die to kill Voldemort. So you could live... so _HE_ could live." By that point, I was having a full panic attack. I needed to talk.

I needed someone to _know_.

"Who?" George asked, leaning foreword at me, but I just shook my head.

"No, we're supposed to talk about Fred right now-"

"To hell with that, mate. We can talk about Fred whenever we want. But you-" Ron jabbed a finger into my chest "keep everything bottled up and never talk. It's about time you had someone listen." Ron said with certainty.

Normally, I would just not talk. I would avert the conversation to something else, _anything_ else. But that night...

that night I was ready to talk. About _everything_.

"I..." They looked at me expectantly. "I don't know where to start."

"Start out with who the 'he' is." George had said, looking, and sounding, interested.

I wasn't going to say. I wanted to run at that moment, actually. But I looked at the faces of the people I had begun to think of as brothers, and I knew that they would accept me for who I was.

"I-" I took a deep breath. "I'm in love with Draco Malfoy." I had said.

The words hung in the air densely for a few seconds. Both of the red-heads' jaws were open comically wide.

"Malfoy?" Ron choked out.

"Y-yeah..." I'd replied, somewhat regretting what I'd said.

"I... didn't expect that..." George said, scratching his head. My face reddened, so I decided to break the silence.

"Okay, I'm not waiting for your reactions. I needed to say something. Now I'm going to move on before this weird confidence ends and I can't talk anymore."

And so, I spoke. I spoke about what happened in the woods. I spoke about my dreams, my nightmares, and my guilt.

Oh god, my _guilt_.

Death was on my hands.

Torture, too.

I told them about how I cut myself during and before the war. Since fifth year.

I talked about my depression.

I talked about my eating disorder.

And they listened. They listened because they _understood_.

God, they understood. We comforted eachother.

And then they started talking.

Letting out all of their bottled up thoughts and emotions, putting it out there.

By morning, we were all riddled with crazed laughter; we sounded like a group of high muggles, but we didn't care.

The weight of a thousand loads was lifted from our broken shoulders.

And it was quicker than falling asleep.


End file.
